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I'm embarrassed to say I forgot all about the eggplant preserves discussed above until I discovered them hiding in the back of the refrigerator! The jar is still unopened from when I made that batch. Is there any reason to fear trying them now, nearly 3 months after making that batch when McFadden says "up to 1 month"?

Getting to the end of our eating marathon... Breakfast (it's about 10AM Singapore time): Recently flaky croissant (served warm) and Char sieu with wonton noodles. Unfortunately the Chinese broccoli was mushy which is strange - usually it's pretty good. Their sambal is really good - spicy with a bit of a roasted flavor .

I guess it just seems like “country club rules” for lack of a better term here in the US. If it’s traditional in Japan, then my apologies for my ignorance.

I disagree because they don't say "produced" They say cellared and bottled. It sounds more like they own a warehouse and they don't say where it is located.

Venison again. Brussel sprouts with bacon and sweet potato.

I think the texture would change and I don’t think there would be any crisp. But soft cabbage can be good, too.

Here's what Castle Rock says on the "About Us" page of their website: I believe this is saying your Pinot Noir is produced and bottled at the Columbia Valley vineyard(s), under Castle Rock's corporate ownership.

I excavated an unlabeled package from the freezer, thinking it was a mix of ground burger and Italian sausage that had lost its label. (This happens sometimes in my household: label falls off, only to be found later at random with no hope of matching it to the bag anymore. Not often, but it happens.) A batch of spaghetti sauce was the plan. Been a while since I cooked any. Surprise! After it thawed in its double plastic wrapping and I could see it clearly, I realized that it was actually a chunk of tri-tip, sous vided to the perfect rarity. I have no idea how old it is, but it smelled fine. Tasted fine. I can tell I coated it with some spice mix containing cumin. I sliced onions, pulled out some cheese slices, sliced some of the meat, and grabbed a tortilla. The A4 box earned its keep: a quick sear of the onions and meat, then a warmup of a tortilla. Loaded meat, onions and cheese slices into the tortilla, folded it over, and griddled both sides. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you a tri-tip quesadilla. All cooked in one small pan. Easy cleanup. @Maison Rustique, you may want to reconsider giving yours away, though it does depend on how much kitchen real estate you have.

Finished off the Christmas Columbia Valley Pinot, which was really quite satisfactory, in spite of being abused by me in shipping and storage. It was "Cellared and Bottled" by a Sonoma winery. They don't say they produced the wine so I assume they bought someone else's wine and may or may not have cellared it in California or in Washington State, or who knows where? Seems dodgy to me.

Well, since I'm still trying to adjust to cooking for just myself, maybe I need this. I'll mull it over. Too many cookbooks!!!

Can this tender/crisp dish be frozen? (I'm preparing for some down time, so I want to make a bunch of stuff now and then freeze it.)

Seems to me it is a superior system for a small place than having to deal with hoards who are outside or dominating the reservations because some tick-tocker "discovered" it.

I, for one, appreciate the reporting from the North. Sometimes no news is not good news!

More sourdough. Tried a little different method and made a levain the night before.

Blackened salmon sandwich with tartar sauce and tomato on a toasted croissant.

Tagliatelle with sautéed mushrooms, garlic, chicken both and a little pasta water. Freshly grated pecorino Romano and basil sprinkled on top. Baci di ricotta with raspberry coulis. Baci were made with orange scented rum and grated orange zest, adapted from Nigella.

Continuing the million meal march, menus for SIN to Newark, NJ, Prem Economy.... Dinner, just served (1:30AM local time), The shrimp were nicely cooked and the aioli was definitely smoky. The bread actually had bread texture and was stuffed with garlic butter. The cake seemed to be the same mango cake they had in the lounge. Chicken biryani from the Book the Cook menu (ordered in advance). As usual, I wish I could get this in NY - the rice isn't oily at all, tons of whole spices, tender spiced chicken.

Found a forgotten portion of pasta dough in the freezer (likely made for Thanksgiving, I think I did 2 portions before for prep). It was a little creaky, but got easier to work as I put it thru the rollers. Tossed in butter and dusted with mushroom broth powder. It's breakfast today.

Potatoes and an omelet with ham and Beehive cheddar

It it - and it is meant to create a mutual „connectednes“ (if that’s the correct word). I have been to two places like that in Japan - both tiny (lile this one - 8 seats only, maybe two seatings oer night, omakase only) - both very memorable dinners. You don’t. You have to know a former patron (likely a regular) who introduces you via an invite (to dine together).

It’s surely concerning to read about these recalls and we surely want to see the causes addressed but, as with any sort of public safety monitoring, it would be a far greater concern if they completely ceased or dropped dramatically. I share @chromedome’s concern.

@patti Thanks, it's a bit of production but we get to enjoy the results for the coming year. I ordered the correct size horn for the sheep casing that I have on hand so I'll be ready for the next batch.

Last night was one of the coldest nights of the year thus far (perhaps the coldest), with our deck thermometer showing -20 (about 0F) and the various forecasts projecting wind chill in the -25 to -28 range. So of course, that's when the breaker for the outdoor outlet on the south side of our house chose to randomly trip (we keep a couple of "garage ready" freezers on our deck, and once in a blue moon their cycles will overlap and trip the breaker). Which, in turn, meant that our heated chicken watering bucket became an unheated bucket, and was frozen almost solid by morning. Not a Really Big Deal in the scheme of things, but it meant some extra running around for me on a morning I'd hoped to be done with the critters quickly because I have work-related deadlines coming up. Anyway, the breaker is reset, the solid block of ice melted out of the waterer under the bathtub tap, and "normal service has resumed." Kind of a minor thing, but I could have done without it. Especially given that with it being so cold, I had to manually empty and refill all of the waterers in the quail cage as well. Usually only the three in the bottom row are frozen, so it goes much faster. I always bring out moderately hot tap water when I feed/water the critters on these cold mornings. If there's just a thin skin of ice in the rabbits' bowls, I can just pour the warm water right in and it'll melt the ice. With the birds' waterers (I have a regular gravity waterer in with the chickens, as well as the heated bucket) I'll plop them right into the bucket of water for a few moments, and that loosens them up enough that I can twist them apart and knock out the ice. We'd planned to have a heated gravity-watering system in place for the quail by winter, but fell a bit short due to a late-year cash crunch. The quail shed has a shelf, sized and positioned to hold a 5 gallon bucket, up near the peak of the roof. We'll have a spigot on the bucket, and a flexible tubing running from cage to cage, where a tee-connector will run the water into a small drinker attachment for the birds. A low-voltage wrap-around heating wire (the kind people use to keep their pipes from freezing, in cold climes) keeps the water running in the tubing. We have all the bits except for the tubing and the heating wire to wrap around it, because the bloody tees are an unusual size and the tubing needs to be special-ordered. Maybe by February? We hope to have a similar system in place for the rabbits by next winter, as well. On another note, the young man who bought a breeding trio of rabbits from us last week wants to come over when we harvest the next batch. He'll trade his assistance with the process for a bit of education, which is perfectly reasonable.

I fear for our friends Stateside, as the regulatory regime there is actively dismantled (I'll leave it at that, because it's a topic that's inherently political, and I can't get into it any further without violating board rules).

Sounds fine to me.